Safe and Clean Community Toilets: Mumbai Women Demand Their ‘Right to Pee’

On November 19, which is World Toilet Day, the campaign activists will approach Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and raise issues of open defecation.

An NGO’s campaign in Mumbai is challenging President Ramnath Kovind’s claim about urban Maharashtra being open defecation free, which he had announced a month ago.

As a comeback, the Committee of Resource Organisations (CORO) started their ‘Right to Pee’ campaign on Friday to raise the issue of unclean and unsafe community toilets for women in Mumbai, reports The Hindu.

On November 19, which is World Toilet Day, the campaign activists will approach Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

They will show him all the open defecation spots in the city in the form of a collage.

“We don’t believe in the concept of being benefited; we are not asking for any kind of benefits here. This is something that is our right as a human being,” Supriya Sonar, one the activists, told The Hindu.

She adds that their focus will be on the plight of women and children in slums without access to toilets, instead of the number of toilets the government has built, while praising the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Some residents also came forward and said that most community toilets remain closed, and the ones that are open are unhygienic or in bad conditions. Others said that a few toilets are shut by midnight which forces women and children to defecate in the open. Some toilets even lack doors!

The campaign will raise these issues to the CM and demand for better quality community toilets for women.